When implementing communication and services through a network, it is an important technical element to authenticate a communication partner. Recently, the range of authentication targets is expanding from a user to a use device terminal along with the popularization of an open network environment and the development of a federation technique for distributed services and resources.
Particularly when the authentication target is an individual, a technique of confirming the identity of the individual is receiving attention now. Generally when executing authentication, it is necessary in authentication to strictly identify or match an authentication target. At this time, when the authentication target is an individual, a principal confirmation technique of strictly confirming the identity of the individual is necessary.
At present, there is a biometric authentication technique as a promising technique of executing principal confirmation. Biometric authentication is a technique for matching the unique body feature or characteristic of each individual with biometric information (to be referred to as biometric reference information hereinafter) registered in advance, and confirming the identity of the individual. As the biometric information, the fingerprint, iris, retina, face, voice, key stroke, signature, and the like are used.
Unlike an existing authentication method based on a password or the like, biometric authentication utilizes biometric information without fear of forgetting or missing, and thus can reduce the burden on the user. Biometric information is assumed to be information that is hard to copy, and is effective as a means of prevention against spoofing of a user.
Now, open networks typified by the Internet become popular, and a move to use biometric authentication as a method of authenticating a communication partner over a network in electronic commerce and the like is growing. Even in the fields of identification and the like, it is examined to perform principal confirmation of the owner of an identification certificate by using biometric authentication.
Along with this move, a technique using an authentication context for biometric authentication is known as a technique of performing biometric authentication through a network. More specifically, for example, Japanese Patent No. 4956096 discloses a technique of summarizing process contents regarding biometric authentication on the client side into authentication context (biometric authentication context) information for biometric authentication, and notifying a verifier over a network of the information.
When biometric authentication is used on a network, there is known a method using a public key infrastructure (PKI) based on asymmetric cryptography. For example, there is known a method of associating biometric reference information (biometric reference template), which is a credential serving as the reference of the authenticity of biometric authentication, with a public key certificate. This biometric reference information indicates information obtained by performing feature extraction processing or the like on biometric raw information (biometric raw data), and serves as reference information of matching process. Some matching algorithms use biometric raw information as biometric reference information. A known typical technique is the standard specification X.509 of RFC (Request For Comments) 3739 or the like. X.509 defines that a public key certificate includes, as an option, information (hash value of biometric reference information) representing the relevance with biometric reference information. Also, ISO (International Organization for Standardization)/IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 24701 defines, as a BRT certificate (Biometric Reference Template certificate), data obtained by adding a digital signature to the hash value of biometric reference information.
As a combination of the above-mentioned biometric authentication and PKI, there is known a technique of indirectly executing user authentication (principal confirmation) on a network by chaining biometric authentication and entity authentication using a public key certificate.
Since base information (e.g., biometric raw information) for generating biometric reference information is sensitive information such as the body feature of an individual, the privacy needs to be taken into account. Hence, it is conceivable to execute biometric authentication processing itself on the authentication target person side without saving information such as biometric reference information on the authenticator side. This method can indirectly execute lifecycle management of biometric reference information by associating a public key certificate and biometric reference information as described above.
However, the above-mentioned biometric authentication techniques have a disadvantage in which biometric reference information cannot be registered in a biometric authentication system from an arbitrary client environment through a network.
For example, biometric reference information is created regardless of which of the authentication target person side and the verifier side manages biometric reference information to be registered. In either case, it is necessary that an authentication target person visits a store or the like designated by a verifier, and biometric raw information is sampled by a device (e.g., biometric information scanner) prepared by the verifier side. This is because the quality and security of the client environment need to be maintained at a predetermined level. That is, in order to prevent registration of low-quality biometric reference information and maintain the matching accuracy at a predetermined level, biometric information needs to be sampled in a client environment prepared by the verifier side. However, an authentication target person is disadvantageously forced to physically move, increasing the burden on the authentication target person.
To solve this disadvantage, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2009-169517 discloses a technique for registering biometric reference information from an arbitrary client environment through a network while maintaining the matching accuracy at a predetermined level.
However, in the technique disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2009-169517, the study of the present inventor reveals that secret information needs to be shared in advance between a device (e.g., portable medium) that stores biometric reference information, and a biometric authentication system. It is presumed that the biometric reference information is managed by a device closely associated with the biometric authentication system.
More specifically, a specific biometric authentication system is presumed to manage a device capable of registering only biometric reference information (and/or information that guarantees the biometric reference information) issued by the biometric authentication system. In this management, the user needs to hold a corresponding device for each biometric authentication system, increasing the burden.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a biometric reference information registration system, apparatus, and program capable of guaranteeing and storing biometric reference information through a network without sharing secret information in advance between a device and a biometric authentication system.